


The Magic One

by Iruka



Category: Frozen (2013)
Genre: Frozen II
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 17:43:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18103334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iruka/pseuds/Iruka
Summary: Anna follows Elsa on a clandestine training run. (Written in the wake of the first teaser trailer forFrozen II, Feb./March 2019.)





	The Magic One

It was a thundery, foggy morning on the black beaches near the Black Cliffs at the foot of the Black Mountains near Arendelle. Chilly and dry as yet, but the sky flashed with lightning and threatened rain.

Princess Anna crouched behind a rock at the top of a fifty-foot cliff, holding a spyglass to one eye in tense, frigid fingers. Its circle framed a human figure, trailed by a line of icy, glowing footprints, running impossibly across the watery trough between wave-crests. A streak of white flashed from the figure’s outstretched arms, and a section of the nearest wave vanished in an explosion of white spray, leaving a V-shaped bridge of ice that stood for several seconds against the beating of the dark, stormy water.

_“Wow,”_ breathed Anna.

Anna had learned, on the rare occasions during their childhood when her sister had come out of her rooms, how to tail Elsa while staying out of sight, and that knowledge had served her well on today’s long hike from the castle. With the help of the dark sky and the fog, Anna’s charcoal gray dress and purple cloak camouflaged most of her body against rocks, trees, and grassy hummocks, though she had to be careful about exposing her gold trim and pale face when Elsa was looking her way. If her sister had wanted an audience, after all, she’d have said so before she began sneaking out of the castle alone to hone her powers.

Anna’s breath stopped as the sea beneath the ice bridge surged and broke it apart, burying its occupant in an avalanche of ice slabs and black water. Elsa’s first attempt to cross the breakers had ended with her disappearing beneath a massive wave, only to drag her dripping body out of the surf precisely 256 heartbeats later, by Anna’s count, and reposition herself for a second charge. Her first target had been a tall black rock sticking out of the ocean beyond the first breakers, but she had kept going after reaching it, distant gold flashes marking her path, as if she planned to cross the whole North Sea on foot.

One part of Anna stood in stunned awe of the lone bluish-white figure matching her ice magic against the elemental force of a stormy sea. Another part prickled with terror and began counting the beats of her pounding heart again.

_What if she doesn’t come back this time?_

_Then I’ll just have to jump in and rescue her._

Of course, that would be easier if Anna knew how to swim… but to save Elsa’s life, she’d figure it out somehow. That was the power of true love.

Lightning flashed overhead, drawing Anna’s eyes toward the sky. Maybe Elsa had come here because she felt like battling something outside her own head for a change. Freezing the ocean during a thunderstorm was the most dangerous thing she had thought up to try so far, but if she could move tons of snow in the avalanche-prone mountain passes—her previous record for dangerousness—Anna felt inclined to give her the benefit of the doubt.

At least for a few minutes.

Biting her lip, Anna brought the spyglass to her eye again and searched the roiling sea for any sign of her sister. It remained empty.

The wind gusts were getting louder, and she’d lost count of her heartbeats. _How long has it been? Too long._ Anna jumped to her feet, shoved the spyglass into the leather bag hanging at her side, and began searching for a way to descend the few dozen feet of cliff between her and the beach.

There was no path, but the jagged footholds on the cliff face would be faster anyway, as long as she kept Kristoff’s rock-climbing lessons firmly in mind. She lowered herself over the edge by her fingertips, then scraped, scrambled, and slid down the cliff more rapidly than was probably safe—a little too rapidly at the end, as she missed a foothold and fell the last few feet in a shower of dirt and scree onto the smooth, black pebbles of the beach.

Anna forced herself to her feet, ignoring her new scrapes and bruises. A few yards away she spotted the low rock at the edge of the surf where Elsa had left her jacket and boots. The sea seemed far more dangerous down here, the foot of the cliffs terrifyingly close to the huge, crashing waves.

She cupped her hands around her mouth and bellowed, _“Elsaaa!”_ The wind blew her cry back in her face.

Anna swept the hair out of her eyes and fumbled the spyglass into position again, noting with a sick feeling that that rock beyond the breakers was _much_ farther away than it had seemed from the clifftop. No way Elsa could possibly—

“You’re holding it backward,” said a dry voice from behind her.

_“Oh.”_ Anna felt her face grow hot as she spun around, hastily lowering the wide end of the spyglass from her eye. There was Elsa, barefoot, dripping, and looking as roughed up by the ocean as Anna had been by her descent down the cliff. Still queenly, though—the unaccustomed glint of steel in her eyes helped with that—and still gorgeous.

“Elsa...” Anna gulped and struggled for words, waving the spyglass at the sea behind her. “What _was_ that?” she burst out at last. “That—that thing with running over the _ocean_ as if it were some, some—I mean, that wave must’ve been twenty feet high, and you _punched_ it like—you could’ve—it’s _amazing_ you didn’t…”

Elsa folded her arms and raised an eyebrow. “I’m confused. Am I being chewed out or complimented?”

Fury flared in Anna’s chest, snapping her back to coherence. _How dare she act so smug!_

“Oh, this is _definitely_ a chewing out.” She balled her fists and pointed one finger at her sister’s face. “You scared the life out of me! It’s a miracle you’re still _breathing_ and not permanently buried under fifty feet of water like Mama and Papa! Did you even _think_ about what could happen if—”

The rest of her words were drowned out by a deafening _boom_ , which came with the beginning of the long-threatened downpour on their heads. Elsa snatched up her discarded clothes, then grabbed Anna’s hand and dragged her toward the base of the cliffs. “Come on. I know where we can wait out this storm.”

It wasn’t a cave so much as a shallow overhang that would be flooded with seawater when the tide came in, but it was enough shelter to keep them from getting any wetter. Elsa was soaked already, of course, but she didn’t seem to care as long as Anna stayed dry.

They sank down side by side on a low black boulder worn smooth by the tides, and Elsa began methodically wringing water from her ponytail. Her momentary cockiness had evaporated; though she didn’t respond to Anna’s outburst, the way she hunched her shoulders and avoided her sister’s eyes showed that she expected her chewing out to resume any moment, and half-believed she deserved it. Anna bit her lip, feeling like she’d kicked a puppy.

_Fix this, Anna. Now, before she proves she doesn’t need a bedroom door to close herself off._

Anna unfastened the gold chain at her neck and removed her heavy purple cloak, holding it open like a bath towel. “Here, Elsa.” 

Elsa always claimed not to feel the cold, but they had learned the hard way that she could get sick. She scooted closer to Anna’s side and let her sister drape the warm cloak around her shoulders, her troubled expression giving way to a tentative smile. “Thanks.”

She started to bend down again, fiddling with her boots, but Anna put a hand on her shoulder to make her look up. “Elsa, what were you doing out there? Were you actually trying to cross the ocean on foot?”

Elsa’s expression turned serious, and she was silent for a few seconds. Finally she asked, “How much do you know about the state of Arendelle’s defenses?”

“You mean the army? Our guys in uniforms?”

“They’re not exactly an army.” Elsa sat back against the cliff behind them, fidgeting with the cloak’s chain fastener. Her eyes looked faraway. “‘Our guys in uniforms’ are the Royal Guards, and there are only a few dozen of them. Our next line of defense is townspeople wielding kitchen implements and maybe an occasional pitchfork. We have no other means of protecting ourselves… except me. I need to learn the limits of my powers so I can be ready to use them if we’re threatened. Hans gave us a wakeup call about that, at least.

“Since we’re alone, this may be the best time for another thing as well.” She paused and took deep breath, turning to look her sister in the eye. “Anna, I need to talk to you about something of vital importance to the future of Arendelle.”

“Huh?” For a second Anna wondered where she had heard those exact words before—then she sat up straight, raising her hands as if to ward them off. “Oh, nononono. You are _not_ giving me Papa’s _you’re-next-in-line-for-the-throne-when-I-die_ speech.”

Elsa blinked. “How do you know about that?”

“Because I was eavesdropping through your door when he gave it to you—all that stuff about traditional royal funeral arrangements and ‘ensuring an orderly succession.’ I was seven. Scarred me for _life_. I remember you crying for, like, an hour after he was done.”

“I did, didn’t I?” Elsa smiled faintly. “I needed to hear it, though. I never could’ve guessed how soon I’d have to—”

Anna stood up abruptly. “Elsa, you’re starting to freak me out. Do you have some kind of—of death wish? Are you trying to _follow_ them?”

“Our parents?” Elsa looked shocked. “Of course not.”

“Then _why?_ I just watched you get buried alive by falling ice! Do you have any reasonable… _reason_ for pushing your powers that far?”

“Not yet,” Elsa admitted, “but I feel like the time is coming when I’ll need to know a lot more about what they can do.”

_Yeah, well,_ I _feel like you won’t live to see it if you keep this up!_

Anna pushed away the thought and swallowed the words. That approach wouldn’t get her anywhere with a woman who valued her life as little as Elsa did. 

She breathed out slowly, fingering the gold collar of her dress. “The thing is… what I want more than anything else right now is some catch-up time. A few years to just be happy together. I know ignoring royal responsibilities doesn’t make them go away, but do we have to talk about the succession thing so soon?”

“I wish we didn’t, but we may not have as much time as we’d like.”

“Before what?” Anna narrowed her eyes, realizing that she wasn’t the only one dodging an important subject. She lowered herself back onto the rock, meeting Elsa’s eyes. “Elsa, what are you not telling me? Is the thing about Hans and our defenses all that’s bothering you?”

“It may be nothing,” Elsa murmured. “I’ve just been doing a little studying about the ancient history of Arendelle.”

“And?”

“And… I’ll tell you more when it’s time.” She frowned at the hurt look on Anna’s face. “I’m not shutting you out, Anna, but I am asking you to have faith in me. If I had to leave on an important mission alone, for the good of Arendelle, could you trust that I was acting for the best? I need to know the kingdom would be in good hands if something happened to me.”

_Something. If._ Outside, the black, stormy North Sea raged and crashed—the sea that had swallowed their parents’ ship whole, the sea that Elsa had charged into _twice._

Anna folded her arms stubbornly. “You told me love is the key to controlling your powers, Elsa. What exactly did you mean by that?”

Elsa raised an eyebrow, but she answered without hesitation. “Before the Thaw, keeping my powers under control felt like holding my breath all the time. Now I only have to focus on how much I love you, Anna—what you mean to me, how much better my life is with you in it—and the magic does what I want it to every time. Just like when we were little. The fear is still there, but thinking of you lets me crowd it out of my mind.”

She’d expected that answer, but hearing it still made Anna uncomfortable—it made her want to argue, to hash out _why_ someone as amazing as Elsa thought so highly of someone like her.

For the thousandth time, she suppressed the impulse. “If that’s true, then we _need_ to stick together. You spent thirteen years trying to carry everyone’s problems alone, only to have it blow up in your face.”

_“Touche,”_ said Elsa under her breath.

“And that means…” Anna squared her shoulders. “…if you want to keep doing this battling-the-ocean thing, I’m gonna have to dive in after you.”

“Dive in after me?” Elsa stared at her. “You can’t do that. You’d drown.”

Anna threw up her hands. “I know! If that idea scares you, _please_ tell me there’s another way to hammer into your stubborn brain how it feels to watch the person you love most in the world pointlessly risk her life trying to do the impossible!”

“Until I’ve pushed my powers to the limit,” Elsa said, “how do we know what’s impossible?”

Anna gave a frustrated _huff_ and ran a hand through her hair, leaning against the rock wall. Elsa had spent years forcibly confining within her body enough power to create build castles and freeze the sea. In a way, Anna couldn’t blame her for wanting to turn it loose once in a while. “So you’re testing your powers… how? Scientifically?”

“Well, I’ve been… trying things. Difficult things.”

“Like crossing the North Sea on foot,” Anna said flatly.

“Like… seeing how far I can get. The next rock, or the next island.”

“In a _thunderstorm_?”

Elsa looked at her coolly. “I’ve already frozen _calm_ seawater. What more could I learn from that?”

“Are you writing things down—keeping records?” Anna pursed her lips as she thought of something. “Did you realize you were gone almost twice as long the second time you ran into the ocean as you were the first? I lost count around four hundred, and the first time was only two hundred fifty-something. Of course, I was counting heartbeats instead of seconds, and you pretty much had me panicking by then, so the time might be a little off…”

Judging from Elsa’s surprised expression, none of these things had occurred to her. She looked toward the tall rock far out in the surf, the grim steeliness in her eyes replaced by a spark of genuine interest.

“Four hundred?” she murmured. “So if we divide that by two, and the rock is maybe fifty feet from shore, and we assume an average fluid-to-surface drag coefficient of—”

She rattled off some more math-and-science stuff, seeming happier the longer she talked, then stopped and blinked wonderingly at her sister. “You’re right—measuring and quantifying what I can do would be a perfect next step. I’m actually feeling _excited_ about this. How did you—”

Anna grinned and wiggled one hand in the air. “Magic.”

“Anna, you’re amazing.” Elsa smiled her slightly cockeyed smile—the one she used to smile as a little girl when she gave in to Anna’s pleas to leave her comfy bed and play in the snow. “Why didn’t I realize that I needed…”

“An observer,” Anna finished, “someone to write things down while you’re busy beating on ocean waves, or throwing rocks at beehives, or whatever stupidly dangerous thing you feel you need to do to ‘test’ yourself. In other words, me.”

Elsa snorted. “You can handle that job as long as you’re not too busy diving in to ‘rescue’ me.” Her smile faded again. “You need to understand, Anna… I didn’t want you or anyone else panicking over me, or being endangered by my actions. That’s why I decided I needed to do this alone.”

“You _can’t_ do this alone. Not the thing with your magic, and not taking off on some quest ‘for the good of Arendelle.’”

Elsa was folding her arms the way she did when she felt insecure. Anna held out her own hands, waiting for Elsa to take them before she went on. “Here’s what you need to understand, Elsa. That morning, four years ago… I was in the front hall when the messenger came banging on the gates, and I followed him up to your room. You’d already opened your door—” _Of all the people to let in on the first knock!_ “—and I saw him kneel down in front of you and call you _my queen_. Right then I knew what he was going to say about Mama and Papa.

“You knew too, didn’t you? I saw it in your eyes.” She gave Elsa a faint, humorless smile. “That was when you spotted me and slammed the door again. And barely set foot outside it until Coronation Day.”

“I remember.” Elsa tried for an answering smile that came out as a grimace. “That was inexcusable of me. I failed you completely, left you to face everything alone.”

“It’s okay.” Anna squeezed Elsa’s hands. “Look, I never told you this before, but since then I’ve had actual _nightmares_ about messengers coming to tell me I’m the new queen.”

Elsa’s eyes widened. “Anna—”

Anna locked gazes with her sister and silenced her with one raised hand. “I am _not_ waiting at home for messengers to tell me what’s happening to you, Elsa. Wherever you go, I’m going with you. Reckless or not, I’m jumping in after you. You can’t stop me.”

Elsa nodded. “I know. You’ve already shown me.” Now she was enfolding Anna’s right hand in both of hers—the hand that had shattered Hans’ sword, though, as always, Anna shied away from that thought and all the mind-blowing baggage that came with it.

Outside, the rain was slackening. Elsa let go of Anna’s hand and reached up to resettle the cloak around her shoulders, letting a few moments of silence crawl by before she spoke again. “All right, Anna. I give you my word that I won’t leave on any vital missions for Arendelle without inviting you to come.” She shook her head. “I’d better not be making a mistake. Arendelle can’t afford to lose us both.” 

“Arendelle can’t afford to lose either one of us,” Anna said quietly, “because we can’t afford to lose each other. Our best chance to accomplish this hypothetical mission of yours is together. Besides, who else can you trust to watch your back?”

Fighting the ocean had taken its toll on Elsa after all. Drier now and suddenly weary, she leaned her head against Anna’s shoulder. “Maybe you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right.” Anna grinned and wrapped an arm around her sister, feeling lighter than she had in days. “Wow, I must be getting better at this arguing thing. I thought for sure you were going to blast me with both barrels of ‘I’m your queen and you have a royal duty as princess…’ blah blah blah.”

“Still might, if you keep gloating about it,” Elsa murmured, her eyes closed. “Don’t push your luck.”

Anna’s mind was jumping ahead. “Researching your powers together—this’ll be _great_. We can work out some ground rules so nobody dies, and you won’t need to sneak around anymore, because it was me you were hiding from all along, wasn’t it?”

With a sleepy half-smile, Elsa nodded. “I suppose it was.”

“I’ve gotta admit,” Anna whispered after another long silence, “if it weren’t for the you-almost-dying thing… it was pretty amazing watching you fight the ocean with ice magic. Really amazing. _Spectacularly_ amazing.”

A gentle snore was Elsa’s only reply.

[THE END]

**Author's Note:**

> For those wondering, I do mean for readers to picture Anna in her new _Frozen II_ trailer outfit, because I like it very much and it would make good camouflage on a dark and stormy day. I wrote this mainly to try and explore the thoughts behind that concerned look Anna gives Elsa at the end of the trailer because nothing would please me more than a sequel as hard-focused on these two as its predecessor. 
> 
> Theories about Elsa’s ocean-crossing scene in the Feb. 13 _Frozen II_ trailer fall into two major categories: (1) She’s trapped/stranded far from home, and the only way she can escape is on foot over a barrier of water; and (2) she’s engaging in an incredibly strenuous but voluntary form of training, for unknown reasons, probably near Arendelle. For my purposes, I’ve gone with theory #2. I’m aware that I could be wrong, and that the story’s whole premise may be Jossed by the next frame of new material—so enjoy it for what it is now, a plausible idea. I don’t know more than anyone else about the plot of Frozen II, but I worked in a couple of the online hints we’ve been given. If I’ve managed to articulate my two favorite characters’ possible thoughts and make the wait for the sequel a little easier, I’m happy. 
> 
> (Now wouldn’t it be cool if they went searching together for, say, villages threatened with avalanches, which Elsa could practice triggering and dispersing safely while Anna fills page after page of her notebook with some of the snarkiest research notes in the history of scientific inquiry? ;-))


End file.
